Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure people can travel abroad with pets after the UK leaves the EU.

Whatever the outcome of negotiations, when the UK leaves the EU, owners of pet dogs, cats and ferrets will be able to continue to travel to the EU with their pets but there may be changes to the system.

We want owners to continue to be able to travel with their animals with the minimum of disruption, whilst maintaining our high biosecurity and welfare standards. The Department has submitted its application to allow the UK to become a Part 1 listed third country under Annex II of the EU Pet Travel Regulations and is currently seeking technical discussions with the European Commission. It is now for the Commission to consider our application for listed status, following our departure from the EU.

On 6 November 2018 Defra published guidance and advice on Pet travel to Europe after Brexit. The guidance also contains advice on the documents and health preparation required for pets to return to the UK from the EU.